


Pastry Physics

by rjosettes



Series: Tumblr Fics [12]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, F/F, Lydia-centric, Minor Scott McCall/Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 21:37:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5981713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rjosettes/pseuds/rjosettes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite being a regular at Kira Yukimura's bakery for over two months, Lydia somehow fails to notice the fact that Kira isn't dating her stunning pâtissière. Now she has some things to set in order.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pastry Physics

**Author's Note:**

> Written for prompt 4, "You want me to do what with the chocolate sauce?" (from the TW Femslash Creators Net) and prompt 21, a rarepair (from the TW Femslash Fic Rec Writers' Challenge).
> 
> I apologize if this feels unfinished - I don't write series much but this feels like it probably has a few installments coming in the future.

“You want me to do what with the chocolate sauce?” Kira is saying behind the counter, one eyebrow cocked and her pen poised above her notepad. “Right. I can try. Yes, the sixteenth, you told me. Four times. Thank you. Have a nice day.” She looks right at Lydia as she ends the call, eyes searching for sympathy. “Can I hire you to teach customers about the laws of physics and what can and can't be done with baked goods and ganache?”

“My degree is in chemical engineering,” Lydia reminds her, taking a long sip of her molten chocolate latte. “I could give it a try, but I'm pretty sure I'd still be talking over their heads, anyway.” The matter of what ridiculous request she's gotten this time is on the tip of Lydia's tongue, but Allison peeks in from the back with an enormous bag of flour thrown over her shoulder. Judging by her rapid French and urgent expression, there's quite a lot of cause for alarm in the actual bakery half of the shop at the moment. “I'll get Scott!” she shouts as Kira's dragged into the cloud of white powder by her apron.

Scott, of course, is outside on his smoke break, like he is every day at this time. He has asthma and never touched a cigarette in his life, but his boyfriend from the coffee shop next door smokes like a chimney. Stiles sneers at her Starbucks cup when he catches sight of it, which is an improvement on the doe-eyed wonder from their first meeting. “I can't believe you drink that shit. You're better than that,” he tells her, literally at the same moment as he flicks ashes onto the street. Apparently he doesn't think as highly of himself as he does of everyone else.

“I'm not here to talk about why your whole fair trade organic schtick is bullshit. There's no one at the register.”

“Oh, fuck me,” Scott mutters to himself, disappearing before Stiles can even capitalize on the suggestive language.

Lydia plucks the cig from Stiles's long fingers and takes a drag before she hands it back, almost coughing up a lung when she realizes it's a menthol and starts to laugh. “I smoked in high school,” she says, eyes scanning the sidewalk across the street. “To stay thin.”

She doesn't have to look to know that he's eyeing her, choosing his words carefully before he opens his mouth. It's rare, coming from him, but at least some of Scott's good qualities have rubbed off on him by now. “I needed something to do with my hands,” he finally admits, dodging around the weight topic as a whole. He's a string bean himself, product of whatever amphetamines he's got coursing through his system. “Probably should've tried out knitting or something first, but I doubt I could've gotten knitting breaks at work.”

“You’d be surprised,” she tells him. “I have a student who crochets in my class. I think she’s under the impression that she has eidetic memory. Her papers say otherwise. Anyway, Kira lets Allison take breaks to play with her phone. Might just be favoritism, though.”

Stiles crushes what’s left of his smoke beneath his ratty sneaker, head cocked at an awkward angle as he tries to look quizzical without losing his constant surveillance of the customers and employees inside his shop. “Favoritism?”

“Most bosses would tend to favor their girlfriends in the workplace.” 

“Uh, no argument there. But that would kinda require them to be dating.”

Lydia steels herself and manages not to gasp, press her face to the window, or blush - well, she’s not so sure on that last one, but it’ll have to do. “I just thought…”

“They live together. Probably the only reason Kira can understand anything that comes out of her damn mouth. Pretty sure she’s straight, though.”

“Kira?”

Stiles laughs. “No, Allison. I don’t think Kira’s dated anyone since Scott, but she’s definitely bi. There were a lot of us coming out all at once that year.” He abandons his sidewalk storefront vigil for a moment, facing her head-on with a curious look on his face. “You’re single, aren’t you?” It isn’t the first time he’s asked, but he’s watching her for a reaction this time, not following every curve beneath her dress and tights. “Not fucking the department head?”

“He’s a man,” Lydia reminds him with not a little disgust. “And I can get by without spreading my legs, thanks.” She regrets not bumming a whole smoke off him while he had the pack out earlier, desperate for a more firm exit than hurrying back in right after he’s supplied some crucial information. Too obvious. “I think the new girl is skimming from the register,” she tries instead, nodding in to Stiles’s briefly unsupervised business. “You might want to have a talk with her.”

She makes a point of waiting long enough to seem casual but not so long that he can point the blame at her when he embarrasses himself with the new girl, who actually appears to have a massive crush on both him and Scott. Inside, Scott seems to have been recruited to handle the bakery disaster. Kira is ringing up a few regulars for their cream puffs (profiteroles, she reminds herself, remembering the dressing-down she’d gotten from Allison the last time she called them that) with a warm smile, foregoing the usual suggestion that they come again.

Lydia scans the case, already sure of what she wants but giving Kira a moment to drop the happy-go-lucky act. “Let me get an eclair,” she says, pointing, careful not to touch the glass and leave a fingerprint. “The rum custard this time. Haven’t tried it yet.” She notices Kira checking the time before she opens the case, picking out the pastry at a leisurely pace. It’s fifteen minutes before Lydia has to head back on campus, and the staff here seem to have her schedule nearly memorized at this point - at least, someone does.

“Is that all?” Kira asks, tongs lingering near some type of pink petits fours. “Nothing for later?”

“About that,” Lydia says, breathing deep and straightening her back. “If I give your customers a lesson in pastry physics, what do I get?”

Kira, confused and slightly pinker around the cheeks, drops her eyes to the buttons on the register. “Um. Are you looking for an employee discount? Because we don’t have one. Everyone just takes home leftovers and failed experiments.”

“I was thinking maybe a date, actually. Stiles said you weren’t seeing….anyone. Right now. And he might have outed you.”

“Oh,” she says, strangely numb-sounding until her eyes widen. “Oh! About...no, I’m out, I don’t mind. After my parents knew, I never minded anyone else finding out. I didn’t know you were interested. In women, I mean. Not in me. I mean, I guess I fall under women, but that’s not-”

“Are you?” Lydia asks, stopping what could very well be a solid three minutes of ramble. Scott’s smoother about it, less abrupt, but the topic is a little pressing. “Interested in me. This woman in particular.”

There’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it brush of contact when her credit card trades hands, Kira’s eyelashes sweeping her cheeks as she pulls it away to swipe. “I could be,” she says, uncharacteristically. “I guess that depends on how knowledgeable you are on pastry physics.”

Lydia’s stomach rumbles, and for the hundredth time in as many days, she acknowledges how thankful she is that Being Thin is no longer at the top of priorities. She slips her business card - well, her tutoring card with her phone number - into the fishbowl of entrants for the weekly pull of a free dozen doughnuts and takes her receipt and credit card. “I guess we’ll see, then.”


End file.
